


tian di

by figure8



Category: K-pop, SEVENTEEN (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Enthusiastic Consent, First Time, M/M, Resolved Sexual Tension, Royalty, Tender Sex, Wedding Night, Wuxia, childhood acquaintances to lovers via elaborate long distance courtship rituals you know how it goes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-21
Updated: 2020-04-21
Packaged: 2021-03-01 19:34:06
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,741
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23642398
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/figure8/pseuds/figure8
Summary: Minghao,Junhui goes to say again, and then he thinks better of it. “Husband,” he pleads instead. “The priests will expect proof, in the morning.”
Relationships: Wen Jun Hui | Jun/Xu Ming Hao | The8
Comments: 54
Kudos: 606
Collections: ENFANT D'ÉTÉ - ROUND 1





	tian di

**Author's Note:**

> this could have more plot, but it doesn’t, because isolation has turned me into a horny monster. all you need to know is that this is set into a vague fantasy version of ancient china where gay marriage is a thing, i guess
> 
> thank you mods for bearing with my pathological aversion to deadlines ✌️

you said,

_ tell me where you’ve been, love _

and i thought of all the lost roads,

and dark corners,

and heavy work, and heartbreak,

and of all the healing

and i just said…

_ on my way here _

– butterflies rising

  
  
  
  
  


“Minghao,” Junhui says. His voice does not tremble. He is proud of that fact. His tongue curls around the second syllable, the smooth roundness of  _ hao.  _

He has never said Minghao’s first name out loud before. It’s always been  _ Lord Xu,  _ or  _ His Excellency.  _ It tastes the way any other word does. It rolls from his lips just as easy. It burns, in his mouth, and so he repeats it.  _ Minghao.  _

“Young Master Wen,” Minghao answers soberly— but his hands tell the story of longing. Grip tight on his own robes, self-restraint a long taut line from his wrist to his elbow, he takes a deep breath that shakes the elegant slope of his shoulders. Red gossamer over his eyes, Junhui wonders, for a dizzying second, if he’s about to be kissed. 

Minghao does not lean in, and he does not lift Junhui’s veil. He remains frozen in place, kneeling on silken cushions, the distance between them simultaneously unbearably small and as wide as a canyon. 

_ Minghao,  _ Junhui goes to say again, and then he thinks better of it. “Husband,” he pleads instead. “The priests will expect proof, in the morning.” 

“Blood,” Minghao nods. “And your release.”

He takes out a dagger from the folds of his robes, ornate jade handle and gleaming blade. Junhui recoils. 

“The first thing is easy,” Minghao says. He pushes himself up, and brings the dagger to his own hand. Junhui propels himself upright too, grabs him by the wrist. 

“My Lord!”

“What?” Minghao frowns. His expression betrays genuine confusion. “If you are so disturbed by the sight of it, then avert your eyes.” 

“I did not mean,” Junhui stammers. “I was not suggesting—”

Minghao’s gaze softens. So much of him is bow-tight lines, hand-carved wood that looks like it will never totally give even under the most gentle hand. “You are my consort. I was entrusted with your life; I will not have you hurt.”

Junhui swallows tightly. At the pit of his stomach embarrassment and worry swirl together. The inside of his mouth still tastes of the sweet wine they drank from golden cups during the ceremony, Minghao’s arm looped over his. 

“My Lord, I was merely suggesting consummation.” 

He says this quietly, head bowed. This man owns the land they are standing on and the roof above their heads and the stone around them. This man owns Junhui’s body. In Junhui’s grasp his skin is hot, soft. Touching him is less foreign than expected. 

“Oh,” Minghao says. He sounds much more like the child he had been when he and Junhui had first been introduced. Disbelieving, at the time still clinging to his mother. Junhui did not yet understand then that some people pledged allegiance to men who were not his uncle, and expected Minghao to bow to him like every other boy did back home. Minghao had only stared him down. 

Hysterical laughter bubbles up Junhui’s throat, and he tries his best to keep it from spilling. They are both still just as young in so many ways. Nobody prepared Junhui for this, for his husband’s strange decency. The girls back home could only recount tales of pain and violence. With every flower in his hair a murmur had been offered.  _ Young Master, all husbands are animals.  _ He had been advised to close his eyes and think of home. Standing here in this red room overflowing with chrysanthemums, all he wants is to look at Minghao. 

“I assumed you would not want to,” Minghao says. His voice in this moment is a shimmering stone in spumed water. Junhui wants to hold it in his cupped hands but knows it is a rare thing, a thing that cannot be kept. He has heard how Minghao speaks to the army he leads, the sandpaper edges of his voice then. “Mother said,” Minghao blushes, “That marriage is most often a lonely affair. She always holds her breath when the Emperor enters a room. I do not wish— I would rather you never look at me in fear or in resentment.” 

Junhui thinks back to the little boy in the rose garden. Oh, how suspicious he was of everything back then already. Oh, how Junhui had hungered to know him. “I am not afraid of you.”

“It is a very small price to pay, a droplet of my blood, for things to remain that way,” Minghao tells him. “I do not enjoy taking things not freely given.”

Junhui arches an eyebrow. “You are a conqueror.”

Minghao huffs bitterly. “I do not wish to be His Imperial Majesty’s general in my own bedroom.”

“I am not afraid of you,” Junhui repeats. “You are my husband. Won’t you grant me what I desire?” 

“If something is within my means, then you shall have it.” 

“Let go of the blade,” Junhui demands. “That is my first wish.” 

Minghao puts the dagger down on the mattress behind them, and then turns his attention back to Junhui, expectant. 

“Take off my veil, Xu Minghao,” Junhui continues. “You are the heir to the throne of Anshan. This is yours.” 

“This?” Minghao asks. 

“Me,” Junhui answers. “I see the way you treat your armor and your sword. I am not worried. I do not think there is a safer thing to be.” 

Slowly, catastrophically slowly, Minghao pulls the thin red fabric away from Junhui’s face. The world is bright and sharper with it gone, yellower and warm. Minghao lets it fall to the floor. 

“Can you see, now?” Junhui asks. “When you look into my eyes, can you see that I am a man just like you? I was trained in the sword arts. Do you believe you will break me?”

“No,” Minghao shakes his head. “I have seen you practice. Your form is admirable, I know you could kill me.” 

“Then?” Junhui asks. His throat tightens, but he swallows down the salt of his insecurities, turns them to defiance. “Would you prefer a maiden? Will you not bed me because—”

He does not get to finish his second question. Minghao grabs him by the nape and crushes their mouths together in an aggressive kiss, the kind of kiss only born out of year-long frustration. Junhui yelps, surprised, and Minghao takes the opportunity to slot their lips together better, the battle now closer to a dance. He grunts into the kiss, and Junhui reaches for him blindly, fingers clutching the endless layers of cotton at his waist.

When they separate they are both breathless. Minghao’s chest is rising and falling too quick, his hairpiece askew, his cheeks tinged. His eyes are much darker than they were before. Junhui’s lips feel slick and buzzing. 

“I do not want a maiden,” Minghao says. 

“I realize that now,” Junhui says, voice strained. Heat is pooling at his gut, irradiating sun. 

“I was going to let you sleep alone. I had rooms made ready for me in the West wing, I was going to leave you my bed.” It comes out less contained and faster than any words Junhui has ever heard Minghao speak. “You were listing your wishes,” he says abruptly. His right hand is on the ribbon that ties his outer robes together. It freezes there.

“I do not think—”

“No, tell me.” 

Like the tide on the riverbank, want comes easy to Junhui. He has always had too much of an appetite for the nicer things. “If My Lord so pleases, then. If he would divest me of this ceremonial dress. It is so heavy.” 

Minghao’s hands are steady as he unclasps and unties and unbuttons. Junhui holds his breath like a small ball of silver in his sternum. The rich red fabric falls to the ground with a thump, leaving Junhui draped in fine glossy silk. 

“Is that all you want?” Minghao asks, hoarse. “Are you comfortable now?” 

“I want my husband to let down his hair,” Junhui says. Surprise flashes through Minghao’s eyes. He did not expect to be asked to remove something himself. 

He complies anyway, making quick work of the gold hairpiece and the hair pins holding his coiffure together. Smooth black hair spills out of the tight bun, fall in a perfect line right above his shoulders. Junhui’s hair is much longer, in comparison, but Junhui is from the South, where men don’t tie their hair and rarely cut it. It has been washed with fragrant herbs for the occasion, and two days before he was due to leave his uncle’s palace the maids lathered it with henna so that in the sun it appears a deep burgundy, scintillating. 

“Will you have me stand before you naked?” Minghao inquires. “Would that please you?”

“Yes.” The air is heavy with incense smoke, the smell of sandalwood thick and heady. “I want to know you,” Junhui says. He doesn’t say,  _ I have known my destiny since I was a young boy.  _ He doesn’t say,  _ I learned my own body already knowing it would be yours one day.  _ He doesn’t say,  _ who else was I supposed to imagine? I’ve dreamt of your bed. They said it would be mine.  _

Minghao divests himself of the first layer of his outfit. This he doesn’t allow to touch the floor; he folds it once instead, leaves it across a chair. The cloth the inner layers of his robes are made of is thinner, more malleable. Junhui traces the hill of his husband’s chest with his eyes, follows the curve of his hips, the strength of his thighs barely concealed.

Minghao removes the inner robes as well. He is left in nothing but a white tunic and a pair of linen pants. Junhui still feels inadequately uncovered in his silken robe. 

“Take off your shirt,” he orders. Power tastes syrupy against the roof of his mouth. Minghao obeys, efficient in his movements, a warrior undressing. There is no room for modesty. 

His torso is marred with scars, lines red and white, old and new. Junhui recognizes a burn mark on his left pectoral, the shallow dig of a spear on his side. Unthinking, he bridges the gap between them to put his palm on these traces of war, as if to soothe. Minghao chuckles fondly. 

“None of these hurt, qiansui.”

“I know,” Junhui huffs, his throat weirdly tight. “I simply want—” 

He does not know how to finish that sentence. 

“Yes,” Minghao says. “You can.”

Junhui runs his fingers down the planes of his husband’s abdomen, follows the rivuleting muscles with hungry curiosity. Minghao tenses under his touch, exhales shortly. At the waistband of his trousers, Junhui stops, questioning. 

Silence has a weight. He had never noticed that before. It is almost unbearable on his shoulders as Minghao leans down to press his lips to his heart over the scarlet silk. 

“Don’t you have more wishes?” he asks right there, his question burning on Junhui’s chest even though fabric. Junhui’s breath fractures then, a hiccup, molecules of air swallowed too fast. His voice comes out raspy when he speaks.

“Take me to bed, Your Highness.” 

  
  


<><><>

There are things that Junhui knows. The song of the birds outside his window back home, and the colors of his clan, and the tender touch of the breeze as he walks along the pier. These things Junhui carries with him like secrets, tucked away in the figurative locket of his heart, companions for the long nights of loneliness he was promised when his uncle negotiated Junhui’s future across an ebony table over steaming oolong tea.

There are things Junhui does not know. He uncovers them one by one, new like the paving stones inside the tall red walls of the Imperial City. Sounds he is unused to: everything here is louder because everything is scaled bigger, brighter. There are peacocks in the gardens, but those birds do not sing. From the main pavilion music can always be heard. Junhui misses the stillness of the river in Shenzhen, the vastness of its blue-green waters. He misses the messiness of his uncle’s court; the clumsy servants and the rude courtiers, the neverending bickering of the guards in the courtyard, the roughness of the badly paved little streets. He wonders if the gold the Emperor sent will transform the roads in Guangdong, if the next time Junhui visits the carriage will glide on smooth stone instead of rocking precariously like a boat at sea. 

Here are the things Junhui catalogues, knowledge he amasses dutifully, new bricks for the house inside his chest. Sounds. Colors. Textures. 

Minghao breathes harshly in contained effort. He is not loud; he does not externalize. He grunts, he bites his own wrist, he puts his mouth on Junhui’s skin and blows soundless air there. When Junhui moans he smiles, something horribly self-satisfied twinkling at the corner of his eye. Junhui is not used to sounding like this. These are noises that escape him unbidden, surprising. Minghao calls him  _ qiansui,  _ this title that does not yet sound like it’s his, and then he calls him  _ dear one,  _ and heat flares through Junhui’s limbs, fire deep and all-ending. 

Above him Minghao is bathed in the light from the candles, mellow warmth iridescent and dancing; honey and the red of the decor, and the red of the flowers, and the red of the silk Junhui still has draped around his shoulders. Red, too, on Minghao’s face as he moves— exertion and control, a drop of sweat along his temple. Red bleeding into purple at the jut of his collarbone as a new contusion blooms, in the space where Junhui discovered want can have a taste, salt on his tongue. 

He expects friction, harshness; the difficulty of incompatible bodies— the irregularity of badly polished steel. Instead he finds all of it too easy. Even the pain is welcome. It comes with a burn that demands to be fed, it makes him arch and undulate and  _ ask.  _ Under his palms the sheets are smooth, and his husband’s skin is hot, the planes of his body solid wood. The room smells of peonies and then of something darker, something underneath that is hard to pinpoint. The oil coating the inside of Junhui’s thighs drips onto the bedding and it stains, and then there are other stains, and Junhui lies there in this sticky, slick mess and sighs and wants for nothing more— nothing at all. 

  
  


<><><>

  
  


“Father said there was no point in courting you,” Minghao murmurs, breath hot on the side of Junhui’s neck. “You were promised to me and no other suitor could dream of competing, and so gifts and trips would simply be a waste of time and money.” 

“But you did send me gifts,” Junhui frowns. “The ivory comb, and silk from the colonies, and ah, the pressed flowers from your mother’s garden.” 

“Yes,” Minghao says, lips aerial on Junhui’s shoulder, three points constellation. “He would not let me visit. I longed for your presence. I remember buying that comb, thinking of your hair.” He curls up impossibly closer. “I wanted you to have things that had first been mine.” 

He is mouthing at Junhui’s bicep now, and then lower, the gentle curve of his elbow, the smooth line of the inside of his forearm. Teeth set against Junhui’s wrist, he speaks there. 

“I have read the great poets. I did not find in the scrolls the words to describe what it feels like to look at you.”

Static zaps down Junhui’s spine, and he knows his face is red. He turns it into the luxurious sheets, hides his prickling embarrassment there. It backfires horribly because the linen smells like Minghao, and also a little bit like sex, and it makes Junhui’s guts twist. 

“No flattery,” he whines. “Please, I cannot take it.” 

He feels Minghao laugh, and then his husband is slithering up again, until he can kiss Junhui’s head, his ear. 

“You know you are beautiful. Do you not have mirrors in Shenzhen? Are men in Guangdong blind, did no one write you poetry?” 

Junhui rolls to face him again. Like this, nose to nose and disheveled and spent, Minghao looks younger, softer. Junhui watches his eyes crinkle with tender amusement. 

“Your father was right in assuming most suitors would be discouraged by your claim. If anyone has put their admiration for me into ink, I do not know it.”

Minghao’s brows are furrowed now. “Has no one touched you, then? Before me?” 

Junhui feels his face heating once more. “My Lord will be pleased to know—”

“Ah, stop,” Minghao scoots even closer, slots his face into the crook of Junhui’s neck. “You only address me formally when you’re nervous,” he realizes, a little awed. “Here, see, you don’t have to look me in the eye.” 

With every word spoken his lips move against Junhui’s collarbone, a butterfly caress. 

“No,” Junhui finally says. “There hasn’t been anyone else.”

Minghao sags against him, his embrace tightening. 

“So no one else has kissed you.” 

“Some of my court ladies, once or twice, in practice. But no— never with with intent. Not really, not because—”

“And no one else has…”

He slides his hand between Junhui’s legs. Junhui’s cock stirs under the teasing touch, even in his exhaustion. 

“No,” he breathes. It comes out more of a rasp. Minghao’s thumbs at the head and Junhui whines. “Again?” 

A kiss to his sternum, and Minghao chuckles. “Do you not want to?” 

It sounds kilometers away from his earlier hesitancy, no real heat behind the question. Still, the movement halts.

“Don’t stop,” Junhui immediately hisses. Minghao gives a full laugh at that, seemingly delighted by the situation. He presses Junhui flat to the bed with his other hand, and his mouth writes burning lines as he goes down, characters unreadable, only desire. Junhui arches up but he is wordlessly told to stay unmoving, and rewarded by the sweet sting of teeth against the inside of his thigh, loving. 

“No one else has done this either then, I assume,” Minghao says wickedly before taking him in his mouth, and Junhui gasps, fingers flexing in the sheets. 

_ No,  _ he wants to reply, but he moans instead, loud and breathy, a sound he didn’t know he could make. 

It feels much different from what they had done earlier. This is unhurried and easy, hot in a syrupy way, akin a summer night. It is less a revelation and more like stepping into water, welcome. Junhui likes it just as much. 

  
  


<><><>

  
  


In the morning, a servant knocks on the rice paper doors, his silhouette a black inky shadow trembling as the sun rises. 

“Dianxia,” they call, respect infused in the title like well-steeped tea. “The Empress requests your presence at breakfast.” 

On Junhui’s right Minghao groans, his eyes cat-like. The covers slide off his body as he stretches, and Junhui drinks in the sight of him, the red of new marks melting in with the old scars. He wants to run his fingers across Minghao’s torso like he would if he were playing the guqin, wants to hear him sing. It is an insatiable hunger now, this need to be skin to skin. Is this how everyone else lives? 

“I will not be long,” Minghao assures him. Junhui tips up his head, pouting. When Minghao kisses him he tastes like sleep and himself. 

Noble men never dress themselves, but Xu Minghao has led expeditions, has lived the life of common men in the mud. There are no servants allowed within the privacy of his chambers, and he pours his own cold water to wash his face in front of the large bronze mirror. When he walks back to the main area and in Junhui’s periphery again, there are droplets running down his jaw, his throat. He steps into a fresh pair of pants, puts on a thin blue undershirt. 

“Let me,” Junhui offers. He holds the outer robes open for Minghao to slip his arms into. The corner of the Prince’s mouth lifts. 

Junhui ties the belt cautiously, steps back to admire his work. His husband looks good in imperial colors. 

“Your hair,” he says. 

Minghao tilts his head. “Will you do that for me too, then?”

“Sit.”

The court ladies prepared a small pouch for him, so that he wouldn’t have to sort through the large wooden chests his uncle sent with the carriage that had carried Junhui to Anshan for necessities. He unfolds the silk bag, fishes out what he was looking for. It is an ivory comb, a bit larger than the palm of his hand, dotted with precious stones and lined with gold. Minghao’s breath hitches at the sight. 

“You’ve kept it?” 

“Of course,” Junhui frowns. “Let me brush your hair.”

It is a silent, peaceful affair. There is not much to untangle; Minghao’s hair is too short for real knots, jet black and silken. It smells like orchid oil. 

“Here,” Minghao tells him softly, his hand on Junhui’s wrist, “Like this.”

In the mirror, Junhui watches him put up his hair and pin it, the headpiece clicking into place. 

“Does it not hurt? It looks heavy.” 

“I’ve worn it since I was a boy,” Minghao shrugs. “It is an old friend.” 

Junhui makes note to ask for rosemary and lavender when he meets the Xu clan’s healer. Back in Guangdong he was taught how to crush the flowers for their essence, and mixed with the water Minghao uses to wash his hair, these will ease the soreness of his scalp. 

“I will return to you as soon as the Empress Dowager grants me leave,” Minghao bows. “I know you are unfamiliar with the palace. I will have breakfast sent up for you.” 

“I’m grateful,” Junhui says by rote. What he wants to say is,  _ when you return, will you come back to bed? I know you are the property of your people, but you were mine for a breath and now I do not think I can return you.  _

Minghao kisses him again, at the door. Kind, but also hungry— their bodies two magnets unyielding, the pull constant. Polarity does not obey any other laws. His hands on Junhui have already started to feel like a promise. It is a strain to watch him go. 

  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> comments and kudos feed the author especially in these troubling times ❤️

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [what belongs to you](https://archiveofourown.org/works/28984302) by [agonies (Hyb)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hyb/pseuds/agonies)




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